European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - November 30, 1988, Darmstadt, Hesse Miv Magazine census to Kerstena Tieser helps the government compile unemployment figures. By Robert or. New York times a. Ena v. Tieser occupational hazards include crib two v worker households 1 vacationers dogs. Pretari actors non English speakers unlisted and people who Are Hosi Ilc or inebriated or undressed. A. Her Job is to help the government compile unemployment figures. Toser works As a yield interviewer for1 the census Bureau. Each month she conducts interviews. As part of the Bureau s current population Survey a grilling of 58,000 american households. -. The Survey s most visible product the unemployment rate is among the most politically and financially sensitive of All. The figures generated by the Federal. Statistics results Are published on the first Friday of every month. As is the Case with other economic gauges compiling the unemployment figures is a mixture of Art and science. Behind Iho seeming precision of the monthly data Lios a Host of human actors. Thai officials contend Wilh As can ,.". Eco Namislo some Limos question the reliability of the household Survey which shows considerable volatility irom month to month particularly during the Christmas holidays and to the summer when the Job Market is flooded with., students. Financial markets in fad. Lend to. Regard a companion Survey of More than 300,000 business payrolls As a belter gauge of Short term economic trends. Nonetheless a close examination suggests Itiat the main problem with Iho. Household Survey is the Ditl Mculty of adjusting Lor seasonal variations not inadequate sampling of interviewing practices. That 18 a testament to the hard work of Tieser who has worked on census Bureau surveys since 1973. And har colleagues. I be walked in on seances marijuana and extracurricular a Lively Toser said using extracurricular As a euphemism for extramarital. She once had to spend 15 minutes walking Back and Lorah across a Lawn to interview a woman too Busy to Stop and turn off her Power Mower. On another occasion she Lound Hersill shouling through a Kitchen window at 11 o clock a night. Although those selected for interview Are not required to cooperate tics or and her colleagues Are very persistent eventually they got responses from 95 percent. We Don t accept no the first time not even the second time she said. There s a Tot of Friendly Tieser works irom Home under the supervision of the Philadelphia regional office near Independence Hall one of 12 offices across the country. It lakes a full week to play her role in this Mammoth Enterprise which costs about s2 million a month. The Survey takes place in the Calendar week containing the 19th, with the questions covering employment or Job seeding efforts the week before. In september Tieser was assigned 56 households generally clustered in groups within a neighbourhood in several suburban towns of Delaware county. The randomly selected interviewees chosen at Headquarters by address rather than name Are surveyed eight times before being replaced they Are interviewed in four consecutive months then again in those same months a year later. The first and tilth interviews for each household Are conducted face to face personals the Bureau Calls them the rest Are done by Telephone. Tieser said that an interview can last i pm perhaps five minutes for a retired couple in a typical month to Well Over an hour Tor a Large family in tha March Survey when Many detailed income related questions Are added she must got information on everyone at the address who is 14 years of age or older. Tieser has Lound Middle class people the most cooperative. The affluent Are not always thrilled about telling their business bul lira poor. Ones May really have something to hide she said. Interviewers Are instructed never to mislead people Aboul the nature of the. Survey you can t pretend you re not. Going to ask personal questions Tieser. Said and that they must always accept respondents answers. Oven when they Don t believe Thorn. The toughest cases Type a a or addresses that cannot to found arc transferred to Carole Abrams Reis Tieser s most difficult Are aspiring people who have fallen on hard limes Abrams Reis observed they Don t want to talk Aboul it she said. Yet they re so. Important to the Survey but the most common reason for noncooperation is Lack of Confidence that the Survey will really remain confidential. One tha score the respondents have Little to tear. The census Bureau has a tradition of vigilantly protecting the confidentiality of the information in collects. Afler Iho attack on Pearl Harbor it refused to turn Over the names of japanese americans to other agencies. At government insistence ties or has placed her Home Telephone to an isolated place where not even lha family can overhear her conversations. She must also destroy All unneeded documents and turn face Down any work papers she leaves in her locked car. The government once experimented with paying people for answering questions but Lound this had virtually no effect in motivating hard Core resisters. Tieser is paid $7.98 an hour plus 22vs cents a mile Tor car expenses. She also receives a supplement Lor taking. Completed Lorms of several colleagues monday of the september Survey week Tieser spent the morning making Aboul is phone Calls and then got in her car to make 22 visits 1g households for the Fust time
